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General Guide by Pr0sD0ntT4lkSh1t

This build has been archived and is for historical display only.

PLEASE NOTE: This build has been archived by the author. They are no longer supporting nor updating this build and it may have become outdated. As such, voting and commenting have been disabled and it no longer appears in regular search results.

Not Updated For Current Season

This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page.

Intro

Hello fellow summoners. I am a Platinum V player from EU-West and my main role is ADC, I created this guide to help other players and try to teach them how to master the most exciting role in League of Legends. I believe I have enough experience to at least advice the ones below my rank.

First of all, there is some humor involved in this guide, cuss we all like to laugh sometimes and remember this is about a game, it's about having fun :D

Now getting serious, along the guide I will try to teach you how to play the ADC role, how to play different types of ADC's and how to build them. This guide was made to help players making the next step to success by learning the correct builds and mechanics involved in ADC gameplay.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT AN IN-DEPTH CHARACTER GUIDE! The objective of this guide is to help people understand and develop their gameplay as an ADC, this is not about the champion in cause. All the ADC's used in this guide to show builds are just an example, they were not harmed in any way.

So let's get to business, shall we?

Being an ADC

You may be wandering what a hell are you supposed to do. Well, as a Champion, your purpose is to obviously try to win your lane, getting kills and farm, then buy items and prepare yourself to kill yordles, but as an ADC, you do this trough your heavy physical damage, while keeping yourself alive and uncatchable. Yeah, that's basically everything.

The actual meaning of "ADC" is "Attack Damage Carry", wich means you are a physical damage dealer (the opposite of an Ability Powa Carry) that can carry your team to victory, that's what makes your role so important.

Now you are asking "But why should I win the game? Why not just troll?". Well, legends say that when you win a game, you get League Points that make you rank up and feel confident about that purposeless existance that you call "My Real Life"

So, how can you to carry your game? Let's learn that below

Runes

As a summoner, it's part of your job knowing what to do to help your champion feel good about his own existence (except if you'r playing Quinn, don't bother with that).

In order to do that, you must prepare your Masteries, Runes and Summoner spells properly.

Starting with runes, these are the options I consider to be more viable to use as an ADC:

Greater Mark of Attack Damage

Greater Mark of Attack Damage

These are the standart Marks for ADC, they will help you farming and harassing your enemy's by giving you some precious AD. It may look like a small bonus, but combined with the Doran's Blade we get 18.5 bonus AD at level 1, it makes a huge diference.

Greater Seal of Armor

Greater Seal of Armor

As an ADC, armor is very important. It will help you winning trades by taking less damage from the enemy's auto-attacks, either ADC or Support. Also, defenses make you less squishy overall, protecting you from those pesty bruiser's damage, because well...we both know a dead champion is pretty much useless.

Greater Glyph of Scalingspace Magic Resist

Greater Glyph of Scalingspace Magic Resist

True life savers, these little blue pals (smurfs if you like) will help you a lot in the late game, because they will give you 24,3 MR at level 18, that's more than a free Null-Magic Mantle. Also, we get Scaling MR instead of Flat MR because AP carry's deal way more damage late game than early game, and besides that, you won't be facing the enemy AP carry in the early game anyway. HOWEVER, if you are about to lane against heavy poke supports like Annie, Zyra, Sona, etc you should consider using Greater Glyph of Magic Resist instead, to get a MR boost early.

Greater Quintessencespacof Life Steal

Greater Quintessencespacof Life Steal

Ok, you may be thinking "I give up reading this guide, who the hell wants 6% Lifesteal?", but let's look at some facts: Imagine you are NOT using this, you are using Quints of AD instead, so you now have 6,75 more AD, but you have no lifesteal, wich means you can only heal by using the Doran's Blade passive; to do so, you must autoattack, pushing your lane (bad); in alternative, your support can spam his heal, running out of mana (bad), or you can start with a Long Sword and 2 potions, but you just lost the passive and HP bonus from the Doran's (bad). Are you full of "Bad" alredy? Good ;)

NOTE: When using "Scaling Runes", you will get the stats of the "Flat Amount Runes" when you reach level 9.

Masteries

Now let's jump to the masteries (a.k.a Champions Best Friends <3). When playing ADC these are the most viable options:

Here we have 21 offensive points to deal the most damage possible without giving away your defenses. Lets talk specifically about some of the choices:

Butcher - It may be a small bonus, but it makes difference when farming minions if you want to take the 3 Quints of Lifesteal, since it helps you last hitting. Also, losing 2% Attack Speed isn't a big deal.

Fury - And now you are wondering "If losing 2% Attack Speed isn't a big deal, why do I want to get 2% then?". Well, just because you won't be taking any Summoner Spell that needs Summoner's Wrath , but you still need to use 2 points in the first level of masteries, so you put them were you need them, Attack Speed or CD Reduction according to your ADC type.

All the other choices are there because they make you bring the pain...like rain... (what?)

These 9 points will help you defeating the most terrifying ADC enemy: SQUISHYNESS!

Yes, ADC's are known for carrying the game, not by taking damage. Playing an ADC means you are the enemy's most wanted (most of the time) and you will be focused by the enemy team, they will hunt you down like a dog. But since you are a low HP target with few defences, how can we fight that? This masteries definitely help:

Durability and Veteran's Scars - Scalling and Flat bonus HP, it looks small but it gives you 138 bonus health at level 18, 30 of that at the start of the game, highly recomended.

Hardiness - 5 Extra armor, giving you a little boost in tankyness that will help your early game. Combined with the runes, you get 17,69 bonus armor at level 1, that's more than a free Cloth Armor

Summoner Magic

Now it's time to talk about Summoner Spells (a.k.a Summoner's best friends <3):

This spell is SACRED, YOU MUST HAVE IT when you are playing ADC. Why? Because it is the best spell in the game, at least imo. Escape, chase, bait, outplay, juke, troll, you can make everything with it, and it feels goooooooooooooooood when you outplay someone so much they start eating their keyboards.

I believe these are the only viable options for ADC's, all the other spells are just not good for the role you are taking and what you are supposed to do.

Items: Offence

Time to get to da itemzzzz (a.k.a ADC's best friends <3).

Items are one of the most (if not the most) important aspects in League of Legends, because your items help you doing what you are supposed to do. In other terms, a support needs aura's and utility items, a tank needs HP, Armor and MR items, an ADC needs damage items and so on.

But not every item is viable for and ADC, there are high priority items, optional items and items you should never take. In this topic i'll tell you what items you should take and when you should take it, starting by Offensive items, Defensive items, the "Choice" items and the "Compulsive Buyer Strategy"

So let's get to business:

This is the best starting item for and ADC, it gives you everything you need for a good early game, Attack damage for last hitting, HP for being less squishy and a healing passive. I recommend taking this 99% of the time, the 1% exception is if you are afraid of getting killed very early and think you need more sustain. If that's the case, take a Long Sword and 2 Health Potion instead.

Not much to say here, these are the only boots that give Attack Speed, wich is exactly what an ADC needs. Take them everytime unless you are playing a Blue Build ADC.

Gives the biggest AD bonus in the game when full stacked and a great amount of lifesteal, it is the best choice if you want a big AD boost at the start of the game. It's a major item for Burst ADC's and AD Casters, but it is pretty good at all other ADC's too. This item should be considered high priority for some ADC's and optional for other's.

This item is just amazing due to his passive, active and the early game boost. It doesn't give you a lot of AD, but it brings a lot of Lifesteal, passive HP% damage, Attack Speed and it can save you many times with the active. High priority for HP% ADC's, optional/don't take for others.

This is the major starting item for Single-Target ADC's, you need a high amount of damage on your basic attacks, an this item gives everything you need. You get a big amount of AD, critical strike chance and a God-like passive: Every critical strike you land will give 2.5 of your attack damage instead of 2.0, it is a Must Have item for every ADC and you should only take something else if you are a HP% ADC that is having a hard time escaping enemys and you need more defensive items.

After building the early game damage, you will need more attack speed. That's where this item comes in. It gives you a huge attack speed boost and a lot of critical chance, as well as a nice passive and extra movement speed for great chase and escape potencial. Some players prefer Statikk Shiv, but i'll get to that in a moment.

Another "Must Have" item. It gives a medium AD boost, but what we want is the passive: 35% armor penetration. This means and enemy with 200 armor will only use 130 of that armor, allowing you to damage the tanks that will often get in your way trying to protect their team. Besides that, this item defines the end of your mid game.
Why? Because after you get it you will have beetween 65-135 AD, 70-110 bonus Attack Speed, 30-55 Critical Chance and 35% Armor Penetration (according to your ADC type), you are ready for late game.

Since the early and mid game phases consist in different orders of the items above, in the late game phase you get 2 more items: another important damage item for your build and 1 defensive item, so we can now jump to those items.

Items: Defense

This is the best defensive item for an ADC, because it gives you great defensive stats that will make harder to kill and better than that, it gives you a second chance in teamfights. So, when your enemies give everything to kill you and you end up "dead", just chill out for a moment while you watch your team killing the enemy team, then revive and clean up the mess. Take this item every game if you can.

The second best defensive item for ADC's imo. Why? Not only because it gives you even more AD and MR, but it makes you able to avoid dangerous enemy CC due to his active. The enemy's will really have a hard time catching you if you use this correctly.

Another great defensive item with awesome stats, but you should only take if the biggest problem in the enemy team is one of the following: their AP carry, some key CC or spell that you really need to avoid (like Requiem) or if you are dieing way to fast and you really need a HP boost.

It is overall a good item due to the very high HP boost an a passive that allows you to chase and lock down targets easier. The bonus AD is meh, but it's better than nothing i guess. You should pick this item if you are needing a great amount of HP due to strong enemy burst or you just need to catch that anoying Riven that keeps running away stopping your Ace, or both.

Biggest HP boost in the game, flat 1000 HP with a passive that brings a big HP Regen bonus. If you are really needing more HP due to enemy burst or you just can't survive long enough to do something, then grab this item without hesitation.

This item is just op. Seriously, it just is. It offers beasty stats for a really low price. Like really, 400HP, 24 HP Regen, 55 MR, 20 CDR and a 20% lifesteal improvement for just 2750 gold? If their AP Carry is going well but you don't need the spell shields from Banshee's Veil or Mercurial Scimitar then grab this without hesitation.

Items: Double-Edged Swords

Some of the items ADC's use should not be used simultaniously, either by being to similiar or because you can't afford to waste space in your inventory. You just have to pick the one that offers you the most advantage.

These are both lifesteal items and they are very good indeed, but you only need one of them according to what you are searching for in the game. Burst ADC's need damage early game, so they buy The Bloodthirster, HP% ADC's need more attack speed, but they still need early damage so they buy the Blade of the Ruined King. Basically, any ADC that doesn't need the BT damage should get a BotRK.

Ok, first off all, I don't like Statikk Shiv and I never use it, but that doesn't mattter, im here to tell you why you should choose one or another. So, even knowing it gives less stats than the Phantom Dancer, people use it because it is cheaper, wich means you can get it earlier, and the passive helps you giving damage to everyone in teamfights because of the AoE damage, and also helps you pushing waves faster. Those are the only reasons why you should take it: Faster to build, more Pushing Power and more Teamfight Damage. If you don't need any of that, take the Phantom Dancer, since it gives you more Single-Target Damage to your auto-attacks due to the Critical Chance and Attack Speed.

There are only two reasons why you should take The Black Cleaver.
First - Your enemys have nearly no armor. And lets see if I get this straight: if they have a bruiser with armor, wich represents 99% of the time because the enemy team will always build armor, buy LW. However, IF they have STRONG DAMAGE DEALERS with NO ARMOR and wich job is to FOCUS YOU CONSTANTLY, CONSIDER buying TBC if you need more HP while still getting a armor reduction passive.

Second - You are Miss Fortune, wich meas the passive from Cleaver activates with each wave from your ultimate.

In every other situation buy LW, the enemy bruisers will always have armor, because that is what makes them...well...bruisers. Unless they are complete idiots or you are SOOOOOO far behind in the game that they can just ignore your damage (Side Note: That often means surrender).

Last Whisper VS The Black Cleaver: Polemic Situation

This is being a really complicated situation, even when talking with my friends about it, so I decided to make this topic.

Just to make a point here, let's get to simple maths.

Imagine that a "I-like-to-be-a-pain-in-the-***" Jayce just doesn't stop going pedo bear on you in every teamfight.
We are in mid-late game.
He currently has 89 armor (Considering 76 base at lvl 18 + 12.69 from runes).

LW takes 35% armor from him (31).
Everytime you hit him, the damage will be blocked by 58 armor.

TBC takes 10 armor from him + 5% each time damage is dealt, till a 25% cap.
Wich means that after 5 times, you take a total of 32 armor from him.
The first time you hit him, the damage will be blocked by 79 armor, IMMEDIATLY taking 5% armor from him
The second time you hit him, he will have 75 armor, taking more armor from him.
After five times, he will have 57 armor.

Take into account that TBC gives +15 AD than LW.

Conclusion: In a mid game fight, IF you manage to hit the same non-armor-user target 5 times, you will actually be ignoring more armor than with a LW. And since you have +15 AD, even if you only have 10 armor pen at the start, that makes the %armor ignore difference even shorter.

But wait, what is a non-armor-user exactly? Someone that can't afford to build tankyness early-mid game because they need damage to be usefull.
These caracters often use great burst damage, wich brings the HP boost from TBC to the table, giving another point for that poor little underrated item.

When you have LW, YOU ignore 35% of your targets armor.
When you have TBC and you hit someone 5 times, EVERYONE ON YOUR TEAM will ignore 25% of that targets armor. (yes, I used green because that is good)

And the case were this will be more usefull is...that's right! If you are playing Miss Fortune.
When you use your ultimate Bullet Time, you will remove 25% armor from everyone you hit, and EVERY MEMBER OF YOUR TEAM WILL BENEFIT FROM THAT.

As you can see, a well placed MF ulti using TBC passive can have a huge impact in a teamfight. Here, you have your 1% case were TBC is indeed a good item for ADC's. Hope I made my point.

In the other 99%, if Jayce gets a Guardian Angel (like he will, since it is his last item) he will have 139 armor.
LW takes 35% armor from him (49)
TBC takes 10 armor from him + 5% each time damage is dealt, till a 25% cap.
Wich means that after 5 times, you take a total of 45 armor from him.

In this case, even with TBC, you will never take as much armor from him as if you were using LW.

Items: Never end your build strategy

Finally, I will talk about the "Compulsive Buyer strategy"

So, what is this? It's very simple: an ADC using Guardian Angel dies and he will only get the passive again 5 minutes later. So, in that time, sell your GA and buy something else! Very simple right?
You may be thinking "But i don't want to lose my Armor and MR...". Then, buy a Mercurial Scimitar for example. You will be able to use the active around 2 times before your GA gets active again, so why sticking with it?

My personal favorite is selling my GA and get another Phantom Dancer, but what can I say, I am confident about my gameplay and dodge capabilities.

And that basically completes the item topic, hope it helps you with any doubts you had ;)

The ways of Life

In order to be good at playing a champion you must understand what kind of champion you are playing. The ADC role has a big variety of styles , but there are different types of champions for every role in the game. Some examples are the roamer ( Katarina) and the farmer ( Karthus) for mid, the healer ( Soraka) and the play-maker ( Leona) for support, etc etc.

AD Caster

Blue Build ADC

As you can see some ADC's fit in more than one type, because they can be effective with different builds, when others can't. However, I'm not telling you that it's a crime to build Infinity Edge first in Graves, but it won't work as good as The Bloodthirster.

Now you must know wich are the major characteristics of each type and why they should be build in a certain way.

I consider that 4 of the 5 types are basically "2 sides of the same coin", due to the somehow similar playstyle, and I believe the last one has a bigger difference when compared to the others. I'm talking about "Burst and AD Caster" playstyle and "HP% and Single-Target" playstyle, being the "Blue Build" the poor little lonely boy in this topic.

Burst ADC and AD Caster

"Burst Champions" are characters that use all their abilities to give a huge amount of damage in the shortest time possible, and then go on Cooldown. In case of mages, after you use your "burst" you need to wait until your abilities are off-cooldown again, while in case of ADC's you just auto-attack meanwhile. However, since your damage is based on your abilities instead of your auto-attacks, you need to focus on that, that's why you build more damage early game than other ADC's, you need to scale your abilities damage sooner.

I believe the major differences beetween Burst ADC's and AD Casters is the cooldowns and the ability types. Let's look at Graves and Corki for example. Grave's ultimate Collateral Damage has a much higher cooldown than Corki's Missile Barrage. Besides that, Graves has 2 damage abilities (not counting Smoke Screen for obvious reasons), while Corki has 4. That's what makes Graves a Burst champion while Corki is a Caster.

To retain: If you play a Burst or Caster ADC, you need the highest AD you can get and use your abilities to make the biggest destruction possible in the battlefield

Single-Target ADC and HP% ADC

Single Target ADC's, has the name suggests, focus on trying to kill a specific target, since they can't hit multiple targets with their abilities, or even if they can, it isn't viable to do it. For example, Caitlyn's Piltover Peacemaker can hit multiple targets, but it will also make her run out of mana, and it's the only "Multi-target AD-scalling Spell" she has, so making her a AD Caster would mean relying on 1 ability, wich is non-sense.

So, since you shouldn't be using abilities to often, you must rely on your auto-attacks. And how do we get more damage from auto-attacks? We build damage and critical chance, wich is another way to say Infinity Edge. So after you have your mid game power you get you late game power, Blade of the Ruined King. The passive will help you killing your target even faster, making you some kind of HP% ADC.

But, some ADC's alredy have the HP% damage in their kit, like Vayne and Kog'Maw. Even knowing they are still Single-Target ADC's, they are built in a different way so we can make use of their HP% Mechanics faster. That's why we focus on Attack Speed instead of Attack Damage in these champions. Take a look at Silver Bolts for a second: It's Vayne's source of damage, but it needs 3 hits on the same target to activate, so we need more Attack Speed than a normal Single-Target ADC to help activating that skill faster. This is the major reason why we get Blade of the Ruined King first and Infinity Edge later, we need the AS boost earlier.

To retain: Single-Target ADC's need more auto-attack power, however, HP% ADC's have a steroid that greetly increases their damage. That's why they are the "hard carries" of this game, they have a beastly late game damage.

Side note: In my opinion, Vayne is the best AD "Hyper Carry" in the game, she kills a target like no other due to her TRUE DAMAGE.

Blue Build ADC

This build is pretty unique, you may believe that it's "weird" and way different from the usual build for an ADC, and you are indeed right my friend. It was once the main build in Ezreal, because the sinergy with his skills was absolutly perfect.

But after all, what is this Blue Build about?

The name was given because of the fact that you buy specific items, wich are all blue in their in-game ilustration. It consists on getting the biggest Cooldown Reduction values possible and skill spamming capability, while still dealing heavy physical damage. On top of all that, it is cheaper than a normal ADC build.

Answers Area

What do you have against Quinn? Isn't she more in the Burst class, rather than single target focused champion?

Answer: I just don't like her as an ADC, and I alredy saw with my own eyes that she works way better as a mid or top laner as a bruiser/assassin rather than an ADC. And yes, you are right about that, I changed her category.

Answer:
I changed the ADC type on Jinx (just added Burst, didn't take her out of Single-Target) and Twitch as well as the Corki Build, after taking a look at some guides around Mobafire, however I must say that I don't play Blue Ezreal very often, but the build I show in this guide is indeed the Blue Build, it is informative and not a showoff of my builds, so you can't really say MY build on Ezreal sucks, since it is everyone's Blue Build. Twisted Fate and Teemo were included in this guide because they CAN be played as an ADC, I find funny that you say they are not ADC's when you make a point using Annie and Zyra Support as example when they are Mage champions ;)
Tell me, if your enemy doesn't have armor, why trade the overall great stats that The Black Cleaver has for a Last Whisper?
You explanation about Statikk Shiv VS Phantom Dancer was really similar to mine, but I took a look at it anyway and add a little more information.
You have a point in the Quints part, but I always take 3 quints of lifesteal and it works fine for me. You had a really good point about the Glyph part and I totally agree with you about it, so I made a reference to it in the Runes section.
I didn't refer the 21/6/3 mastery case because I think the 21/9/0 is better, specially for the persons who are trying to make his way to the Platinum Tier, wich are my target public with this guide.
Thanks for the sugestions you made, but try to read a bit better the guides you comment before making your point.

Your guide is heavily flawed.
Number one... Vayne is a single target adc as well. I guess you forgot to mention her in that category also.
Number two... Do not put Twisted Fate and Teemo as adc's because that's like saying any ranged champion can be an adc. Just don't put them as that.
Number three... Twitch as a single target ADC is not completely true because of his ultimate in team fights...

Answer:
Number 1- If you read carefully, you can see I say this in my guide:

"But, some ADC's alredy have the HP% damage in their kit, like Vayne and Kog'Maw. Even knowing they are still Single-Target ADC's, they are built in a different way so we can make use of their HP% Mechanics faster."

As you can see, I said that HP% ADC's are still Single-Target ADC's.

Number 2- Twitch is alredy in the burst class
Number 3- Not every ranged champion can be played like an ADC, but Twisted Fate, Teemo and even Kennen can, that's a fact.

because once they see your TBC, they'll stack armor, and you've literally just put yourself so much behind the enemy.

Furthermore, EVERY bruiser buys armor. It's an undisputable fact.

Even when bruisers look for more offensive starts they go for Sunfire (armor).

Answer:
Yes, when you have a bruiser in the enemy team you will almost always need LW. But sometimes, team compositions lack bruisers.
Lets see it like this, imagine their top laner is a Glass Cannon Jayce. Jayce gets Guardian Angel as his LAST ITEM, and that's the only armor he will have. However, his MID GAME damage is pretty insane. So tell me, when Jayce is focusing you in a teamfight MID GAME, would you prefer having 35% armor penetration against him, or more HP and Cooldown reduction so you can resist his burst and kill him first?

You may say that this is just an hypotetically case, but that's why I said you will get TBC 1% of the time, it is only in very rare cases.

Also, if you say that bruisers always buy armor you have never played in bronze, because down there...things are pretty bad.

Quick Change Log

18/11/2013 - Added the Last Whisper VS Black Cleaver topic, since it was getting attention and I wanted to clear it out.

Sum Up, make me questions and TY all <3

I hope you enjoy my Guide and above all, I hope you learn something from it. The purpose of this guide is to share my knowledge about the ADC role, wich I love to play! It really is the thing that makes me think League of Legends is an awesome and exciting game to play.

This guide is not finished yet, I still have some development to do (specially since season 4 is starting), and I plan to make video examples when I manage to get my LoL Recorder fixed.

I try to answer everyone's comments as soon as I can and fix whatever is wrong with my guide.

I would REALLY apreciate constructive criticysm from anyone, send me messages or comments if you have any sugestions to make, it would help a lot.

Also, make any questions and I will try to answer them the best I can ;)